So...whats for dinner?

MinusTwo

Nance & Special - thanks. Both of those Orzo recipes look good but it just so happens I bought some fresh asparagus this week, sooo

Goldie - I always used a recipe for everything until COVID. Now, although I still have a recipe at hand, I will often ad-lib. But I agree with SpecialK - I always use a recipe for baking. Edited to say - cooking for one is an entire different world!!!

Tonight was a case in point. Mash up of 3 recipes. Sauteed onions & garlic. Added vegetable broth & sprinkled w/flour after it was boiling. Added mllk & already cooked shrimp. Just before serving, I added a bag of fresh spinach & served over pasta. It was good - but mostly bland. Next time I'll add some crunchy things - like red pepper or water chestnuts - and also considerably more spices.

illimae

Puppies are great! They have wild puppy energy but are learning to potty on pads, can sit and “high five”.

Tonight is sautéed chicken with peppers and onions, topped with a 1/2 slice of provolone, roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes and spinach.

serendipity09

Thanks for the recipes specialk and auntienance! They sound delicious! I've never made Orzo either, but have been wanting to. Now I have two recipes to try.

Eric - thank you for helping in PR.

Goldie - we didn't hear or know anything about my father for months; it was awful. Last week during the power outage I saw how much PTSD there is; lines at the gas stations were blocks long; panic buying. It broke my heart.

My niece and her family of 5 will be joining us, so I had to up my menu. In addition to the ham, PR rice, potato salad and flancocho, I made a carrot cake from scratch, can't wait to dig in to that. I'll make chicken fricassee, a salad, and some roasted root vegetables that I'll sauté in garlic and butter. My healthy eating goes out the window tomorrow.

WC3

I was going to make soup but I decided I wasn't up for it so I had a chicken tostada without the shell. Unfortunately I forgot to tell them no cilantro, which tastes to me nothing like it is intended on account of the fact that I am part of that 4 to 14% of the population that has ability to taste aldehydes. I don't hate cilantro with the same passion that some do but it tends to take the enjoyment out of the meal for me.

carolehalston

Nance, John was a bass fisherman. The crappies came from another neighbor who also will not be at Pine Hollow this summer. He and his wife moved their camper to another location. It's a good thing they opted to vacate their campsite because a property issue did away with that campsite.

I used a version of Laurie's salsa chicken last night. I poached two chicken breast halves in a jar of salsa. Then I added a can of rinsed black beans and a small can of mild chopped chilis. After cutting up the chicken into bite sized piece I made a casserole with white corn tortillas, the chicken/bean mixture and grated sharp cheddar. The dish was much to my liking with dollops of sour cream and home-made guacamole which dh mixed up.

I will be warming up leftovers for a lunch or two.

The next time I make stroganoff, I will use the full fat sour cream and see if it works better.

Happy Easter to all.

eric95us

Happy Easter for those that celebrate it.

wallycat

Broiled sockeye, steamed cauliflower and a sweet potato. Delicious, easy and quick.

SpecialK

Happy belated Easter to all who celebrate - I was busy cooking, so I am late! DD and her beau came for dinner after they took DH and the dog for a boat ride on the river. We had deviled eggs and a veggie tray with dip as apps, then ham, English style roasted potatoes, asparagus with Hollandaise, whiskey glazed carrots, and a zucchini dish my mom used to make - sliced zucchini, tomatoes, onion and mozzarella baked in the oven. Dessert was lemon cupcakes and chocolate dipped strawberries.

On the lamb vs ham question - it came down to price. The lamb was about $55 for a decent sized semi-boneless leg, but the ham was on sale for $2.99 a lb, which seemed to be a deal. I picked a 9 lb one and it was less than $30.

Dinner tonight is TBD. I don't have a lot of leftovers, except for ham, lol! I do have a visit scheduled with the dermatologist though, which will likely result in at least one biopsy - the norm for me. I have three spots that I have noticed and want them to look at, and they always find more. It is an end of day appointment so I may not feel like messing much with dinner. It is very hot and muggy already today, so maybe a salad of some kind.

goldie0827

Eric, I too thank you for going into PR to help.

Thanks for the orzo recipes. I'm pretty sure I have some. AuntieN, your recipe looks yummy and rather easy, with just a few ingredients. And it IS asparagus season. I too almost always use a recipe. I may tweak it second time around. Thank you on the condolences.

Minus2, cooking for one can be a challenge for sure. Altho, even with the passing of my DH, I'm still cooking the same, as he didn't eat the things I did. I like cooking and making a mess. He like processed foods. Things that go in the microwave basically. He didn't eat chicken, turkey, ham, pork roasts. The only veggies (cooked) corn, grn beans, hominy. No ranch dressing, sour cream or cream cheese, no mushrooms. When we went camping, I would always make omelets, it took 20 years before he finally tells me he doesn't like omelettes!

Serendipity, I do hope your dad is doing better. What I find amazing about those in the islands, is that they come together. At least I know that of those on St. John where my DD is. But then it's also very small, compared to PR or St. Thomas.

WC, I did not know that about cilantro. Do you get the same with parsley?

SpecialK, that was quite the spread you put out girl!

Well, I spent my Easter Sunday in the ER. Started Saturday with lower R back pain (kidney). Saturday night I only got about 4 hours of sleep, 2 hours at one point and then another 2 later. The pain was excruciating! So I took myself to the ER Sunday morning. CT scan to rule out stones, urine culture, which will take a few days. Treated for kindey infection, given anti b's and pain pills. The doctor was sure to let me know that the scans indeed showed many mets! Ya I know, I'm reminded of that every 3 weeks when I go for treatment. I went to bed at 6 and got up at 5, but I think I got up like 6 times to use the bathroom, as I had been drinking so much water, plus the IV fluids. Feeling much better today, not 100%, but better!

serendipity09

Hope those of you that celebrated Easter yesterday had a nice one, and for those that did not, I hope you had a nice Sunday!

Goldie0827 - I'm sorry you ended up in the er, but am happy you are feeling a little better.

It is amazing how everyone comes together in times of need. By no means can I compare the power outage from week before last to a hurricane, but nonetheless, witnessed how everyone was so willing to help out and check in on others. It really was touching.

Today will be yesterday's leftovers. I thought I'd have a lot left, but didn't, which is fine with me.

SpecialK

goldie - I have problems with excessiveness and being very extra with holiday food, lol! For whatever reason - I suspect being a military spouse for so many years, and often not being able to celebrate holidays with extended family - I am invested in making the things we have always traditionally had. My kids and DH have that expectation, they look forward to it, and always appreciate the effort - so it is worth it. I have the same issue with holiday decorating... I have an overabundance of Christmas trees. I wanted to say how sorry I am about the loss of your DH, I meant to include that earlier. Also, so sorry that you ended up in the ER yesterday. That gets a boo from me! Hopefully the abx and pain meds will do the trick. I can sympathize as I am prone to that kind of infection as well. Bleh. Hope you can get some rest.

serendipity - glad your PR peeps have each other - that is indeed touching! Wish that was everywhere... How was your carrot cake? That is my DH's fave. I once made him a birthday carrot cake and put little frosting carrots on top for each year - I don't remember how old he was turning but it was a lot of little carrots, lol!

eric95us

Special...the mention of carrot cake got me to laughing.

Carrot cake was how I knew that DD was beginning to read. We were at a bakery and DD was looking at the cakes. She was literally drooling as she moved down the cake display to look at each cake..until she got to the carrot cake. At the carrot cake, she went "Ewwwwww", and quickly moved on to begin drooling at the next cake in the display.

MinusTwo

Goldie - sorry about the ER visit. LOL about your DH's eating preferences. Cilantro almost makes me vomit. The smell is even a problem when they pile it touching the radishes in the grocery store

Special - I have zucchini lurking in the fridge & your Mom's recipe sounds good. I usually saute those three things but of course everything's better with cheese.. Care to share? Interesting about the holiday traditions. My Mother's were 'fixed in stone'. Once we kids had our own children & lived all over the country, it became difficult to meet her expectations. So I became sort of fixed on my own traditions, while replicating many of my Mom's. Turns out my ex-DH and my son both HATED all the trappings & food & "requirements". One of my goals since I retired is becoming less rigid.

Eric - carrot cake - LOL. How is your girl doing?

Mae - hope you're OK. Count down time.

carolehalston

Goldie, I thought my Easter was miserable but yours was worse. DH managed to hit a water pipe with the lawn mower. Home Depot was open so he went there for some supplies but the repair didn't go well. Yesterday morning he went out for more supplies and all is well again. We have water in the house.

I was able to take my shower and arrive clean for my appointment for the 2nd booster shot. Last night I had an awful night with chills and bad dreams. I assume I experienced a reaction to the vaccine. After some black coffee and strong Tylenol, I'm feeling better and plan to go to a medical appointment.

Last night's dinner was pork chops, baked sweet potatoes and bagged kale crunchy salad. Tonight may be Sub Way. DH is off to the golf course and will probably have lunch with the guys after his round.

goldie0827

Specialk, I always make more than needed, but more so have some left overs. Now it's so I can freeze portions, so I don't have to cook so much. But not everything freezes well, so that's been a learning curve. I made some turkey tetrazinni from leftovers from TG, and that froze well, so I bought a turkey and did that. The mashed potatoes and gravy did well also. I don't like any of the jar/package gravys, so I always make my own.

Eric, cute story about the carrot cake. I assume, as a child, she thought it would taste like carrots! I would turn my nose up too. Same with zucchini bread. But neither taste like the veggie that is in them! Where are you guys in your move?

Minus, you are laughing at my DH, I'm laughing at you and the cilantro touching the radishes!

I love zucchini, and have several recipes. However, I can not grow it due to it ALWAYS getting squash bugs, no matter what I do!

Carol, so about the water pipe. Water issues are never any fun. Amazing how much you miss it when you don't have it. Can you imagine how back in the day, a lot of people had to haul their water by the buckets full. I know my DH's family had to do that and the spring was down a rather steep hill and not real close!

Yesterday was just some chicken in the air fryer, mashed taters and asparagus. I love my air fryer!

illimae

Sorry dinner friends, I am not caught up at all and so tired. We drove all night to the cabin, too late to find an open grocery store and arrived at 4am. I slept a few hours, had crackers and peanut butter for breakfast and am planning on a package of ramen noodles for dinner. Heading to the big city tomorrow for treatment and hopefully a decent market. DH is cooking at a mountain man/pioneer type event this weekend, so plenty of Dutch oven foods. More on that later. Hi to all!

wallycat

Illimae, I love how you "roll with it" and figure it out....and don't stress about appointments. I may PM you for help.

I took the last of the sockeye (not enough for 2 good meals), flaked it and made a socca crust, topped it with chives and the flaked salmon, topped with cheddar cheese...my version of a salmon-melt. Leftovers tomorrow.

cyathea

I was away for a few days, but loved catching up on the posts (but wish the pages loaded faster, it takes forever!)

Specialk, I also make an orzo salad like yours. It’s so good!

Yesterday, I made potato kugel, asparagus, and baked salmon. I threw together a glaze for the salmon using whiskey, dark brown sugar, sumac and lemon juice. It’s a good combination that I will do again. I had something similar that was made with bourbon, but without the sumac. I didn’t have any bourbon on hand but the whiskey worked. I added the lemon as a counter to the sugar. Sumac has lemon-like overtones and I’ve used it on fish before and liked it

Tonight was an old standby because I was late getting started with dinner: steak, carrots and mashed potatoes.

illimae

Wallycat, I’m happy to share tips but honestly, it’s my nature not to stress much. In middle school, my BFF told me her mom’s motto was EGBOK (everything’s gonna be ok), I kinda ran with it and made it my own.

The ramen was pretty good too, I loved it in high school and survived on it during chemo.

MinusTwo

Well - the ice maker that has been back ordered for 2 months for my "new" fridge was supposed to be delivered today at 7am. I got a confirmation email last week and actually called & talked with two different 'humans' in person to make sure. Unloaded the freezer. No show. When I called at 10am - "oh that's now back ordered until June".. GRRRRRR. So my ex-DH came up for a consult on balancing the freezer/fridge air which I haven't been able to get to work right and I took him to lunch at Pappadeaux. He had fried shrimp. I had a large Cobb salad with shrimp & crab. (very sad that they don't have Remoulade dressing nor even Thousand Island anymore) We went at 11am and the food was good, but by 11:30 we couldn't hear each other at all - even in a side booth w/plexiglass dividers. By the time we left at noon I was hoarse from shouting.

Goldie - hope you are feeling better today. Carole - what a challenging ordeal.

Love the salmon dishes from Wally & Cyathea

Edited to say - Mae, you have made & shared so many delicious dishes, you deserve a break - and you get a pass.

goldie0827

Illimae, good luck to your DH cooking at the mountain man event. Can't wait to hear about it. Is it a competition and will you be going? For treatments today, is that your H/P?

Minus, that is horrible about your ice maker. And why couldn't they let you know sooner??? It must be on that slow boat from China! I am feeling better, thank you.

I think I'll just pull out some spaghetti that I froze, but made from tomatoes that I canned from my garden last year. Windy windy here, with 2 fires now burning. Not good when it's so windy. Well, it never good, but they spread so fast with the winds. Human caused no doubt as we have not had any rain.

carolehalston

I find that I'm missing some posts since the design changes. Several times after comments that had no meaning I have gone back and found unread posts. One recent example was Eric's daughter's reaction to carrot cake. Not sure why this is happening.

ChiSandy

Serendipity, so sorry for the loss of your step-MIL. Complaining about Chicago's bipolar weather seems trivial compared to what PR has been going through the past few years.

No dining out (at least not me--Bob sometimes ate at the hospitals or stuff drug reps brought to the office) from our return from NOLA into Easter. Lots of fridge/freezer-foraging (especially when weeding out the "science projects"), plus pan-seared fish from Hooked on Fish (last week was walleye and Scottish salmon) and one evening I was able to grill a ribeye late Sat. night along with jarred gefilte fish and matzo ball soup from a mix (soup was from base plus some herbs & garlic and I added seltzer to the matzo ball batter to make them fluffy), plus shmura matzo, which Bob loves. No real Seder--Bob & the kids were working both nights. Made matzo brei twice (once from a leftover piece of shmura), and it shows on the scale, alas.

We did an abbreviated Easter brunch with the kids at a restaurant (Port & Park) near their home. Earliest res we could get was 1:30 and they had work meetings online at 3, so we didn't have much time together. Had calamari app for the table, plus a "Chicago skillet" (bacon, sausage, peppers, onions, spinach, cheeses, diced potatoes topped with 2 supposedly "sunny-side" eggs which turned out to be "over-hard"). They were crowded so I didn't make a fuss. The sparkling rose was flat--and though I'd ordered 6-oz. pours they brought 9-ouncers (and charged us for them). Not going back. At least we parked for free (no Cubs game that day, so no permit necessary) in front of the kids' house and walked there.

Mon. night I ordered out for tandoori chicken and palak paneer from Little India in the neighborhood. Actually, quite good, reasonable, & fast. Last night I sauteed skate wings I'd picked up from Hooked on Fish in the afternoon--you need to cook them the same day because they go bad relatively quickly. Browned butter in a splash of olive oil. As soon as the wings "seized up," I flipped them and added sherry vinegar & capers. I reduced the sauce and poured it over the wings when I plated them. Also sauteed broccolini (Bob's request) and made a fresh tomato/windowsill-basil salad over Little Gem lettuce leaves with a lemon-balsamic vinaigrette.

Going out to Regalia (in a likely rainstorm) tonight--Bob's favorite bartender from Cellars, the Pumping Co., and Hugo's now works there.

illimae

Goldie, yup, it’s treatment day, just the H though, we dropped perjeta when I switched to the Herceptin/Xeloda/Tukysa combo to help control the brain mets. It’s a 3 hour drive each way, ugh, I know you know how that is.

I’m going but not competing, even though DH renamed me illi oakley after my first time shooting, lol.

cyathea

Tonight was “sweet and sour” brisket, buttered turnips and leftover roasted carrots and a simple salad. The brisket was a friend’s recipe and, for once, my brisket wasn’t tough or dry. (Yay! Small victories.). The brisket sat on a bed of browned onions, grated carrots and grated parsnips. The sauce had a shocking amount of dark brown sugar and ketchup (half cup and full cup, respectively), but the flavor wasn’t at all what I expected. The wine, vinegar and Worcester sauce cut the sugary sweetness.

Chrisandy, I’ve been making matzo brei as well. You’re not kidding that it is not kind to my weight!

Mae, I hope your treatment day wasn’t too bad. I only had 2 infusions of Perjeta since I had some issues with THCP. I know the relief of not having the digestive side effects. The 3-hour drive sounds tough. I would be exhausted just from the driving!

carolehalston

Lately the What's for dinner question has been like a lifelong sentence. Yesterday I took a bag of Camellia cannellini beans out of the pantry and a package of smoked ham hock slices out of the freezer and introduced them to each other. Additions were onion, garlic, carrot, celery, bay leaves and fresh thyme. The result was tasty. We spooned the beans over brown jasmine rice and enjoyed slices of French bread with butter.

Today I may take a package of ground lamb from the freezer and introduce it to potatoes, carrots and peas to make shepherd's pie. The freezer's offerings are limited as should be the case.

Except for a still-sore arm at the injection site, I am feeling back to "normal" after my booster shot on Monday.

To cheer myself up, I ordered new glasses with red frames.

wallycat

Illimae, thank you for your kind post. I suspect my demeanor isn't set up for going with the flow, even though that is my only choice.

Carole, I ordered Camellia's cannellini beans a few times and love them!

Tonight will be a tofu noodle stir fry...either broccoli or spinach as the veg.

cyathea

carolehalston, your “introductions” made me smile. I will be making similar inquiries of my pantry and fridge for inspiration and introductions. 😁

I’m thinking that leftover brisket should meet quinoa and some roasted veggies.

serendipity09

ChiSandy - thank you!

illimae - hope everything went well!

I have no idea to what make anymore. My taste buds are off and nothing tastes the same, I think it's the Xeloda. You'd think I'd have lost some weight...nope! Going back through the pages to get some inspiration on different things to cook. When food tastes good I love cooking, not so much lately.

Tonight was a Caesar salad with a thin chicken breast seasoned with a bit of adobo, organo and garlic.

ChiSandy

Last night at Regalia we shared an app of grilled baby octopus (tender & delicious) over baby arugula, and the house Mediterranean salad. Bob had veal marsala with garlic mashed potatoes. I had braised lamb shank with grilled veggies.Treated myself to pistachio gelato for dessert--it was worth the carbs.

Today for lunch (after returning from the MO and Subaru dealership) I fried a "Happy Eggs" blue-shelled/deep-orange-yolk egg in olive oil, with the remaining salad that Bob put back into the fridge (along with the bones from the last of the tandoori chicken which was his wee-hours snack)--used the green raita dressing that came with it. Had my Talmudically-mandated small chunk of bran matzo to help with the yolk.

Tonight was surf & turf. The "turf" was the other half of last night's lamb shank and the remaining palak paneer. Started with a small Caprese (Buf brand fresh mozz) over arugula. The "surf" was Pacific striped bass in foil with olive oil, green peppers, and fresh herbs--cooked the packet on the grill. Also marinated large asparagus spears in olive oil & balsamic before grilling them too. Topped the fish at the table with mango-habanero salsa.

Can't grill tomorrow night--gonna storm again. Warm & dry Sat.....till showers begin at (of course) dinner time. Will rain all day Sun. till about 9pm--then the temps will plunge into the 40s for highs but (fingers crossed) dry on Mon, Tues. & Wed. (according to one local forecaster). Other forecasters predict alternating mild rain and cold dry days clear up into May. My deck's been sanded--hope it doesn't rot before we can have the two dry days in a row to stain & seal it.